Jumping-On: "Bedlam" by N. Spencer and R. Rossmo

A few months back I read this promo on the Image Comics website for a new ongoing book called “Bedlam”. The copy for #1 said “Fillmore Press was once Madder Red, a homicidal maniac and criminal overlord who terrorized the town of Bedlam for years. Then he got better. This is what happens next.” Very simple, yet it piqued my interest. For one reason or another, it took me a few months to actually get that book, and now that I have the first four issues, I thought it’s a good time to talk about the series.

(The first part of this article has very mild spoilers for most of the first issue, the second part, marked for SPOILERS contains some slightly bigger ones)

“Bedlam” is written by Nick Spencer, with art by Riley Rossmo. It’s rated “M” and for good reasons. Even though the short and to-the-point premise of the series caught my interest, I had my worries about how it may be executed. The first issue is 50 pages-long (for the beautiful price of $3.50!) and does a marvelous job of getting us right into the story. The opening takes us 10 years back, to the epic culmination of Madder Red’s crime spree and his final conflict with Bedlam’s caped superhero called “The First”. The flashback sequences are in black, white and red, which really builds an eerie atmosphere. We open with this: there’s a huge hostage crisis and Madder Red and his men have already killed most of the civilians. Men, women and children. This is where The First infiltrates the building, finding Madder Red with only one hostage left: a little, terrorized girl. Before he’s beaten and taken to the police station, Red slits the girl’s throat, immediately killing her.

Madder Red during one of the flashback sequences.

This is where I thought “Jesus, this is pretty twisted.” and started wondering if the book is gonna be anything other than cheap shocks, and how the hell is this guy supposed to “get better”. Well, turns out it’s much more than cheap shocks and the answer to my second question is also quite satisfactory. At the police station, Madder Red is far from finished. A pre-recorded tv broadcast of Red starts airing and we find out it was all part of the plan. A number of children in a number of schools have explosive materials planted somewhere on them and if Madder Red doesn’t die within the next hour, then the children will. This causes a panic: people start storming the police station, but of course there are laws, trials, procedures that must be kept and the police can’t just kill the guy even if he’s a mass-murdering psychopath. This scene, Red’s dialogue and his whole persona is very similar to Heath Ledger’s Joker from “The Dark Knight”. Red is obviously very intelligent and always several steps ahead. We’re not TOLD he’s smart, we see that for ourselves thanks to the brilliant writing and dialogues Spencer provides. He’s very philosophical, there’s a method to his madness and he’s a character that’s really intriguing. Don’t lynch me here or anything, but I actually think Red might be the more interesting villain of the two.

So what
happens next? Well, Madder’s mask is rigged and explodes, taking his head clean
off, seemingly ending the man’s life.
If you’re
already sold on this book and plan to pick up #1, then this is it. You’re done
with this article. If you need a little more info, with some SPOILERS, then
read on.

Still here? Well, obviously he doesn’t die. We don’t get an explanation on how this was planned yet, but the head in the mask wasn’t Madder Red’s, it was some lowly thug’s. But the world thinks Madder Red is no more. We’re seeing scenes from Fillmore Press’ present (these scenes are in full color), mixed with flashbacks from the final days of his Madder Red persona. Fillmore is a tormented man, taking massive amounts of pills to keep himself “sane”, but he’s still as brilliant as ever. But what happened to the real Madder Red all these years ago? Red wakes up at a clinic ran by somebody who we only know as “The Good Doctor”. The doctor looks a bit like Jack Nicholson’s Joker and he’s also one of the most interesting characters I’ve seen in comics in recent years. He’s a mild-mannered psycho working with two disfigured nurses for the greater good. It’s awesome and it’s a bit of a nightmare fuel kind of thing.

The Doc has Red tied up to one of those dentist seats and he has him there for treatment. Open skull surgery type treatment. Parts of his brain get cut out and he remains there for a long time after that, when he’s experimented on until he’s no longer a threat. So now we have our answer to how Madder Red was “healed” and thankfully it’s not due to “the power of good” or any horrible cliché that’s ever-present in superhero comics. The treatment he gets is like “Clockwork Orange” dialed up to 11. And Fillmore Press after the treatment is quite similar to post-Ludovico Clinic Alex. He’s still brilliant, though he's far from normal, and his drive to do good deeds now is somewhat naive and very disturbing. The greatest thing about it, though, is that Fillmore now is way more interesting than Madder Red. He steals all the scenes he’s in and, very much like Ledger’s Joker and Clockwork’s Alex, he’s the type of madman that we just can’t stop watching (ESPECIALLY after the treatment).

The beautiful covers by Frazer Irving.

Almost all of this happens in the first issue, but this is just the beginning. There’s a new serial killer terrorizing the city of Bedlam, and the reformed Fillmore wants to use the experiences from his past life to help the police catch the murderer.

Issue #4 of this comic just came out this week, and it keeps on being one of the best books out right now. The series has great potential, Spencer really shines as a writer on this and Rossmo’s art is beautiful (and check out the covers by Frazer Irving!). It’s not something for the squeamish, and it’s not for kids. It’s a pretty brave book, considering the themes in play here, and it tackles the subject in a very ambitious way. It’s been a great ride so far, and if you think this might be something for you, then you should definitely grab all the issues that are out so far.

Since there's only 4 issues out, this is a great moment to get into this new ongoing series! Reading "Bedlam"? Planning to? What are your thoughts?